Sitting on top of the floorboards

A man I went on a few dates with when I was on my de-escalation with the Professor and Ginger and stayed friendly with afterwards sent me an email asking if i might want to catch up sometime, let him pick my brain about poly, compare where we thought we'd be when we met to where we are now. He seems most interested in ideas and opinions about poly. Though he decided to get into a monogamous relationship with a nice woman he dated awhile after me, he said that he still thinks about meeting other people. If he can fit it in when I can, next weekend while the Professor and Ginger are having their alone day, then I will. If not, then it probably won't happen.

I've been wondering what I'd tell him and there seems to be a list of things that I've had on my mind lately, some related to poly, some related to love and relationships,  some just things about my life as it's lived right now. So here goes, in no particular order....

I'm a shitty friend right now. If it fits in my schedule and seeing you brings me up, i might see you. If i have something new and/or romantic and/or sexual with you, i might see you. That's about it. I don't have much to give anyone and I largely don't feel like sharing things about my life with you, so I don't hang out. I have a weird work schedule and don't get to see my kid or my partners very much so I tend to take advantage of that when I can. I'm not really sorry about that. I also don't expect you to be there when i do come around or to help me out after I've ignored everyone forever, though it is appreciated if you do.

In the last few years, I've discovered that I'm quick to get infatuated, can't really predict who I'll become infatuated with, but I'm also very quick to distance myself from them when it stops feeling ok. I can also accept something if I know it from the start of a relationship that I might end another relationship over if I find it out much farther in or if it changes to that same thing farther in.

I'll never "be the girl" in a relationship with another woman and I need to just accept that. I wanted to find a woman who made me feel like a man does, like the Professor does, able to be vulnerable, like i could finally breath and not worry about protecting myself, like being the little spoon. I can find a partner and I can find a friend who understands things that a man doesn't or can't. But I may not ever find a woman where we both want something with each other who doesn't make me feel like what I imagine straight men feel when they love a woman.

I am probably not "truly" polyamorous. I've seen some people on forums say that swinging and open relationships are polyamorous but I do not share that view. Those are forms of non-monogamy, but if there is no caring relationship there, I don't consider it to be polyamorous. I fell into a polyamorous relationship with my people because I fell for both of them together. I didn't really know who one was without the other and had no intention of finding out. But I am probably more mono-amorous and polysexual. As I've seen Ginger develop her love with her new boyfriend/ old friend, I know that I could never deeply love and have different relationships with two completely separate and unentangled people. As with many abilities, that ability she has to do this is something I simply do not possess. While I may care about the other people I have sexual or romantic relationships with, I do not feel like I have it in me to feel anything on the same level as what I feel for the Professor.

Being in my life is conditional. My trust is conditional. Even my love is probably conditional. There is always a limit and a breaking point. I won't feel bad for that. No one else will always protect me or take care of me but me (and even then I kinda do a shit job.) No one else is ever gonna be with me my whole life. I have to do this myself and that means having limits. I try not to expect any different from others.

Everyone is selfish. If someone seems selfless, it's just that you haven't found what they are selfish about.

I miss alone time. I'd love to be alone in my house sometimes, especially just to watch tv or movies I want, that no one else likes, to make food no one else likes or that I don't want to share. You know what I want more? A clean house and clothes. Time with my kid. Time with my family. To fuck and/or play with the Professor. (That last is what I'm really selfish over and I will call every relative we have to find a babysitter on the Saturday of the month we get together.)

I am still lonely. Right now I am lonelier than usual because there is so much I don't feel I can share with anyone. I can tell you all of the above things and still feel like I habe told you nothing about what lurks in my heart and mind. ("And in my best behavior, I am really just like him. Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid." - "john wayne gacy" by sufjan stevens ) There are so few things I don't tell people that I know that more private friends and family think I'm too open. I am open to friends, family, even people at work about my relationship and my life. I am constantly keeping my partners updated on what I'm doing, on plans, on appointments, etc, even when they really don't care. I run every step of new relationships by them for their approval. There is so much I lay out on table before anyone can ask, before anyone could say I was keeping something from them, before one person could use a piece of knowledge they have against me with someone else. There is not an action I have taken that I would keep from my partners if asked and I feel I offer as many as I could think to that might have any significance, but I didn't realize how much I was keeping in until someone told me that they wanted someone they could tell everything to, their deepest, their darkest, everything. I don't know when I stopped believing that person existed but it's been a long time. There isn't a single person now that I'd want to tell the things that run on a loop in my head to now. I think that is part of why I don't want to hang out with people,  because of how fake it can sometimes feel when they share with me but I know I have no intention if sharing back with them, or at least not of sharing anything with any value to me. One of the things I've always appreciated about the Professor was that he's known things I might never have told him and he didn't punish me for them, but often found a way to integrate them into our play and our lives. Unlike previous times in my life though, I don't really WANT to tell people these things. I don't feel the need to unburden myself like I used to. It might be better if I did. All of this stuff may tell you a great deal but it also tells you very little. I'm still wrestling with exactly how I feel about this.

[Added a few days later because I was tired the night I wrote it and forgot about this point]  A thing I am working really hard to do is to not feel guilty when something good happens for me that doesn't happen for someone else I know and or love you I know also wanted that day. I know life isn't always a zero-sum game but sometimes it is. Also sometimes I know that it hurts when someone get something that you wanted. I've spent a really long time feeling guilty when I got something that someone else did. Many times I try to set things up in a way so that someone would get that thing as well only to be disappointed when I realized that I didn't have control over everything in that situation. I've been very fortunate recently. Sometimes that was through hard work, sometimes through a difference of personality or circumstance, and sometimes it was just sheer dumb luck. I've been lucky that no one in my life has made me feel guilty about these things, and now I am refusing to make myself feel guilty anymore. I want you enjoy what I have and be thankful for what I have. That doesn't mean I won't help others have things that they want, or even the same things I have, but I won't let myself not enjoy what I have anymore.